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Alex blinked up at his father, his eyes large and guileless. “It is a pity.”

“Ahem. Well, I wanted to talk to you about the night Miss Belmont arrived. You had… You had run away, hadn’t you? When you met her.”

Alex twisted around in his saddle again, facing forward. “Yes, I had run away. But you mustn’t blame Mrs. Trench. She?—”

“I don’t blame Mrs. Trench. I don’t blameyou, either, Alex. I… I just want to know why you ran away. I thought by now you might be ready to tell me.”

Edward forced himself to wait.

The silence stretched out, begging to be filled with words. He eyed his son’s narrow back, hunched over the saddle now.

“You know why, Papa,” Alex said, at last.

“No, I don’t. If I knew, I wouldn’t ask.”

“You never ask about things you know about,” Alex muttered, but before Edward could ask him what he meant, the boy was talking again. “I… I thought I would go to London.”

He blinked. “London? Why London? You should know that there’s nothing for you there. Nothing for us. Your mother’s dying wish was that I take you away from there.”

Alex hung his head. “But she never said that I couldn’t go back, did she?”

“What do you want to do in London, Alex? Where would you go?”

He drew in a breath. “I’d see Aunt Beatrice, my mother’s sister. And my grandparents. I’ve never seen them.”

Edward said nothing for a long moment, guilt rushing in.

Beatrice had always been at their house, to begin with. Jane adored her sister, and they did everything together. He’d liked Beatrice. She was talkative and confident and clever, and only seemed to laugh at his brusqueness.

But once Jane was gone, things changed. When he retired to the country with baby Alex, he did not invite Beatrice to come. She sent him letters, of course, as did Jane’s parents, but he rarely responded. He dutifully declined all invitations to visit and ignored hints that they would like to visithim. The letters gradually dwindled.

He had heard that Beatrice was married and was said to be very happy. In the few letters she wrote to him now, she always asked about her nephew, eager for any news about him.

“I’m sorry that you’ve never met your aunt,” Edward heard himself say, his voice cracking. “Perhaps one day, you will.”

“Perhaps,” Alex responded flatly.

Instantly, Edward realized that his son did not believe him.

How many promises have I broken to make him distrust me so much?

In a flash, he was back in his study, facing an angry Miss Belmont.

“He loves you dearly, and you didn’t even come to see him tonight, although you’d promised that you would.”

He’d forgotten about the promise he’d made to Alex, so easily spoken, that he’d come up and see him before bed. What had distracted him? Why hadn’t he gone up?

Abruptly, Alex sat up a little straight, spurring his horse forward. For one awful moment, Edward thought his son was trying to run away again, but no, he was just hurrying forward to a large clearing. Their road was blocked by a fallen tree, the log standing at waist height across the path.

“We could jump over it, Papa,” Alex said, his eyes shining. “I’ve been practicing my jumps during my riding lessons. I bet that Bess and I could do it.”

Edward swallowed reflexively. He knew that he and his gelding could manage it, and the mare Alex was riding had made larger jumps before. But Alex was too small, too inexperienced. In a flash, he was standing over his son’s crumpled body in the undergrowth, his neck broken, his eyes blank and lifeless.

He choked.

“No, Alex. We’ll turn back.”

Alex’s face fell. “I can do it, Papa. Ask the groom—I’ve done jumps that high before.”